


To Demand the Impossible

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Uncertain Point of View [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Being Contrary Runs in the Skywalker Family Apparently, F/M, Force-Sensitive Shmi Skywalker, POV Second Person, POV Shmi Skywalker, Pre-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Slavery, Tatooine (Star Wars), Young Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 03:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: Your name is Shmi Skywalker.You did the impossible and led a successful slave uprising on Tatooine.Now you have an even more formidable challenge: trying to break the composure of a very unflappable Jedi.





	To Demand the Impossible

Your name is Shmi Skywalker.

No one knows you. Not really. You won't let them. It's better that way.

You don't own anything except the thoughts in your head. You don't own your time, or your labor, or even your own body, so you hoard your thoughts instead.

You're very good at hiding your emotions; you have to be, or else you wouldn't survive.

But now there is something else that you're hiding: you are pregnant.

You don't think about the circumstances that led to it. It's better to not think about it and you're so good at hiding your thoughts that you can even hide them from yourself. Better to think that there was no father at all than to think about what really happened.

Instead, you think about the kind of life that your child is going to have and you try to keep the despair from consuming you. Gardulla the Hutt will either abuse them or take them away from you. Either way, your child will not be free.

You think about your child crying as a tracker is implanted under their skin. Your hands curl into fists.

You won't be able to keep your pregnancy hidden for much longer, so you decide to stop hiding altogether.

Something needs to change.

* * *

Gardulla and her enforcers don't know it because you keep it hidden when you're around them, but your fellow slaves know that you have strange powers.

Nothing too impressive: you can sometimes sense when people are coming before they arrive, or pick up their thoughts, or calm a group of people when their anger could become dangerous. Sometimes your dreams come true. Other times you get premonitions and visions.

Once or twice, you swear that you made something move with your mind.

So when you tell them that you're planning a revolt, they believe that you might actually succeed. They help you. They have hope.

When the day finally comes, it is your job to find Gardulla's majordomo before he can trigger the explosives in your trackers. You know that you can do this: the explosion of a bomb is nothing compared to the one currently burning in your soul.

You can't get close enough to him because they closed the gates so that you couldn't escape. But you see where the activation device is and you see where the keycard is, so you reach out with your feelings and _pull_.

It is like magic: the device and the keycard float out of his pocket and through the bars and into your hand.

You are going to get out of here. You are going to be free.

But first, you are going to deal with Gardulla.

* * *

You didn't expect the uprising to grow the way that it did.

Gardulla's people in Mos Espa and Jabba's people in Mos Eisley are all under siege. The violence is intense but, against all odds, you are winning. The power of the Hutts is breaking. The lowly of your world are raising their fists and saying, some for possibly the first time in their lives, _no._

By the time anyone in the Core notices, the fighting is nearly over, so they send people to provide aid and assistance to the newly-freed.

One of the people they send to Mos Espa is a Jedi. You had heard of Jedi before but you're surprised that they do anything other than fight with those laser swords they all carry around. You are also surprised when he tells you that they are guardians of peace and justice, though you privately wonder what sort of justice sees things like slavery and does nothing. Some of these Core worlders are so naive, you think.

It has taken time for you to truly understand that you can now say whatever you like and no one can stop you. You use your words audaciously, trying to say the most dangerous things that you can think of; things that would have gotten you beaten or worse before. You defy everyone that you meet. You are contrary, stubborn, and rude… and you've never been happier in all your life. So happy, in fact, that you sometimes even let it show.

You can't quite figure out that Jedi, until you realize that he is just as good as you are at hiding his thoughts and emotions. His composure is impressive and for some reason you view that as a challenge. You decide that it would be fun to try and break through that composure.

You pester him and follow him around, asking questions and demanding answers. At some point, he catches on to the game and begins going out of his way to not react, though you catch the hints of a smile on his face the longer you keep at it.

One night, you join him for dinner by more or less barging into the place where he is staying and demanding that he share his food with you. This has been your latest strategy: making increasingly outrageous requests and daring him to say no. He almost never does and you can tell that he is starting to enjoy finding ways to one-up you through generosity.

You give him a brief respite while you eat. The silence between you is more comfortable than you expected, though you love the knowledge that you could at any time fill that silence with whatever words you wanted.

Maintaining that silence doesn't keep you from moving every dish just out of his reach, though.

Almost absent-mindedly, he reaches out a hand for the bowl of spices and it slides across the table towards him.

You forgot that Jedi had powers like that.

Fighting back a grin, you stretch out with your feelings and slide it back to its original position.

For the first time ever, he looks well and truly startled.

* * *

It turns out that being able to do those things is what qualifies someone to be trained as a Jedi.

Not you, though. Apparently you are too old; the Jedi Order only admits young children. If the child that you're carrying ends up having these powers, though, he could be one.

You only have a few weeks left until you give birth and in the meantime you have begun dreaming about your child. Your _son_ , because you can see him in your dreams: seeing him as a baby, as a boy, and as an adult. He is beautiful and loving and so much kinder and trusting than you could ever hope to be. At some point you see him in those brown robes and that is when you know that he is going to be a Jedi one day. You feel proud but also a little sad, because it means that you will have to let him go eventually.

You begin pestering that Jedi for information about the Force. You want to know as much as you can; just because you can't be a Jedi doesn't mean that you have to stay ignorant. He answers your questions and soon you both realize that he is training you whether he wants to or not.

He warns you that his time on Tatooine is drawing to a close and that he will have to return to Coruscant.

You make your most outrageous demand: that he take you with him.

* * *

You end up going into labor on the ship. The Jedi is extremely alarmed and you actually laugh out loud at him, because people give birth all the time on Tatooine without a doctor or medical facilities and it usually works out all right.

The process is painful and exhausting, but by the time you land on Coruscant, you are holding your son in your arms. Anakin. Born free while traveling the stars.

It is hard to tell who the Jedi is more amazed by: your child or you.

* * *

There are refugee programs that you qualify for on Coruscant, meaning that you and Anakin have a place to live and some additional resources before you recover enough to find a job.

The Jedi visits you shortly after you get settled and keeps visiting after you order him to make a regular habit of it. You see that smile of his more and more.

You didn't really give him a choice in the matter, so he is training you in the ways of the Force even though he is technically not allowed to train you at all. Your powers grow stronger the more that you learn: you can perceive more things, moving things with your mind becomes easier, and you have better control over your visions. The first time that your mind touches his, you are both equally startled because it feels like being struck by lightning. You don't know what _you_ looked like but you swear you saw a blush on his face.

One day, he brings a young man with him who you initially assume is his son but turns out to be his apprentice. It is only then that you realize that Jedi do not have families: they join as children and never see their parents or other relatives, and they don't marry or have children of their own. It sounds very lonely and it occurs to you that one of the reasons why the Jedi brought his apprentice along is so he could see a family firsthand.

You start to worry about what this might mean for Anakin, but you reassure yourself that you live on the same planet as the Jedi Temple and that you won't let anyone stop you from seeing your son.

You also worry about your Jedi friend and how sometimes it seems like he doesn't really want to go back to the Temple at all.

* * *

Soon, almost too soon in your opinion, Anakin is old enough to join the Jedi Order. You will miss him terribly but your Jedi friend promises you that he won't let them keep you out of your son's life.

He sometimes talks about the Order's discouragement of attachments but it is obvious that he disagrees with them. You can tell how much he cares for his apprentice and for Anakin… and for you.

You feel an odd sense of satisfaction over that knowledge. It feels like you're back to the old game you used to play with him on Tatooine. You feel like you're winning.

You decide on your final move: on his next visit, you kiss him and then demand that he stay the night.

You both know that you won. Qui-Gon ends up being very gracious in defeat.

* * *

Your name is Shmi Skywalker.

You can do impossible things.

You survived on a world that tried to destroy you. You led a revolution and took back everything that had been stolen from you. You created an amazing little boy and gave him a better life.

You can also use the Force but that isn't what allowed you to do the impossible things that you did. It was because you found a way to stop hiding and to demand everything you could until the universe relented and gave it to you.

You even pestered a Jedi into loving you. You really _can_ do the impossible.

And this is only the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Music: Sanja Ilić & Balkanika, "Nova Deca (The New Children)"


End file.
